Anatomy
Stanley A. Gelfand in Hearing, 2017
The auditory system comprises the ears and their connections to and within the central nervous system. From the standpoint of physical layout, the auditory system may be divided into the outer, middle, and inner ears; the auditory nerve; and the central auditory pathways. The outer ear is made up of the pinna and ear canal. The eardrum separates the outer and middle ears, and is generally considered to be part of the latter. The middle ear also includes the tympanic cavity; the ossicular chain with its associated muscles, tendons, and ligaments; and the eustachian tube. The auditory nerve leaves the inner ear through the internal auditory canal, enters the brain at the angle of the pons and cerebellum, and terminates in the brainstem at the cochlear nuclei. The ear canal leads from the concha to the eardrum and varies in both size and shape.
Hearing
Patrick Rabbitt in The Aging Mind, 2019
Sound vibrations travel down auditory pathway until they agitate the eardrum: a neat descriptive term for a membrane stretched across the ear canal. A seemingly odd design feature of the auditory system is that the right and left hemispheres of the brain do not each independently deal with input from the right and left ears. Progressive losses of cells in auditory pathways happen for many different reasons. The Norwegian study also checked whether amounts of hearing losses are related to the increase in the use of portable sound systems during people’s lifetimes but found no evidence that this was so. Discoveries of substantial and progressive hearing losses during adolescence are ominous for old age. Conversation is one of the great joys of life. Its degradation is a major loss. A hazard of the inevitable coupling of growing peripheral hearing losses with increasing slowness of mental computation is that this can make our conversation seem much duller than it should be.
Audiological Assessment of Hearing
James R. Tysome, Rahul G. Kanegaonkar in Hearing, 2015
This chapter outlines the main tests that are available, when the tests may be indicated, how they are interpreted and the clinical information that they can yield. Standard procedures are available for many of these tests at the British Society of Audiology website. Visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) is a conditioned behavioural assessment employed widely across paediatric audiology to assess hearing levels in infants. The VRA paradigm allows air and bone conduction assessment via soundfield speakers, headphone, insert earphone and bone conduction presentation. Insert earphones/headphones are required to gain ear specific information, as soundfield presentation via speakers represents hearing from the ‘better ear’ with both ears working together. Tympanometry is useful for investigating the mobility and integrity of the eardrum. For example, the test can be used to obtain more information about a conductive hearing loss, equivocal bone conduction audiometry and audiograms, without bone conduction results.
Unfavourable prognostic factors in patients treated surgically for otosclerosis
Published in Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 2020
Backgrounds: Otosclerosis is the cause of between 5% and 9% of all deafness cases and between 18% and 22% of conductive hearing loss cases. Neurosensory deafness develops in 30% of patients with otosclerosis. Aims/Objectives: The aim was to seek a correlation that would reflect the dependence of the results of middle ear surgery on the type of abnormalities atypical of otosclerosis but found during the stapedotomy surgery. Materials and Methods: The analysis included 140 patients who underwent surgery for otosclerosis. The hearing of all patients was assessed using an audiometric test. Results: In the assessment of changes in the mean bone conduction values, statistically significant differences between the reference group and the subgroup of patients on whom a myringoplasty was performed, as well as in patients with adhesions present in the middle ear spaces, were found only for the 500 Hz frequency. Conclusion and Significance: The removal of abnormalities, such as the loss of the eardrum (iatrogenic), changes to the lining and adhesions other than those typical of otosclerosis, restores middle ear mechanics after a stapedotomy on the inner ear and leads to a measurable improvement in mean bone conduction values.
Otologic and audiologic characteristics of children with skeletal dysplasia in central China
Published in Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 2013
Guanming Chen, Siqing Fu, Jiashu Dong, Li Zhang
Conclusion: Otologic and audiologic abnormalities are both highly prevalent in Chinese children with skeletal dysplasias. Audiologic and otologic evaluations with medical intervention are recommended for these children. Objective: Children with skeletal dysplasia have a number of otolaryngologic issues including hearing loss. This study aimed to investigate the otologic and audiologic features of Chinese children with skeletal dysplasia in central China. Methods: Otologic evaluations and pure tone audiometry were performed in children with skeletal dysplasias. To explore the potential associations with hearing loss, we studied various craniofacial anomalies. Results: A total of 125 children (mean age 9.2 years, range 5–18 years) with skeletal dysplasia were enrolled, and otoscopic examination identified eardrum abnormalities in 45.6% of the children. Audiologic analysis revealed 14 cases (11.2%) with conductive hearing loss (CHL) and 22 cases (17.6%) with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL).
Analysis on the correlation between Eustachian tube function and outcomes of type I tympanoplasty for chronic suppurative otitis media
Published in Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 2020
Ruixiang Li, Nan Wu, Jiabing Zhang, Zhaohui Hou, Shiming Yang
Background: The potential influence of Eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD) on the efficacy of tympanoplasty is controversial. Objective: This study aims to investigate the correlation between Eustachian tube function (ETF) and outcomes of type I tympanoplasty for chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM). Materials and Methods: 53 patients with CSOM and receiving type I tympanoplasty were divided into a dysfunction group (Eustachian tube score; ETS ≤ 5points) and a normal group (ETS > 5 points) according to their preoperative ETS. During the one-year follow-up, the ETS, hearing results, and eardrum condition of the patients were recorded and analyzed. Results: The ETS improved significantly from 2.57 (±1.73SD) to 4.68 (±2.00SD), while the mean air–bone gap (ABG) decreased significantly from 20.94 (±9.04SD) dB to 16.43 (±9.06SD) dB in the dysfunction group (p
Related Knowledge Centers
- Ear Canal
- External Ear
- Middle Ear
- Mucosa
- Tympanic Membrane
- Ear Auricle
- External Ear Canal